St. Louis Sings the Blues

The "Gateway to the West"tries to stop its urban exodus

St. Louis has long been loved as a city of beer and baseball, riverboats and tree-lined avenues, French fur traders, German burghers, and that distinctive 630-ft.-high stainless-steel arch, a symbol of the city's historic role as "Gateway to the West." At the turn of the century, St. Louis was the nation's fourth largest city. It is the birthplace of T.S. Eliot, the ice cream cone and, some say, the blues.

Today, however, St. Louis is singing the blues. According to the 1980 census, the city's population dropped 27% in the previous decade,...